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Learning how to live a stress-free life may seem impossible, but the truth is that there are specific things you can do to begin eliminating sources of stress.
No, it doesn’t look like a made-for-television movie. No, it doesn’t look like something only people with extra time and money can do. It looks like your life—but without any self-created stress triggers.
What Does Stress-Free Mean?
Stress-free refers to a state where the feeling of worry is absent. When you are not bothered by any other negative feelings that make you feel anxious or tense, you live in a stress-free condition.
Stress is a result of thoughts that keep you unhappy. Resentment towards a current situation, feeling stuck, loneliness, anger, etc., can lead to stress. Symptoms like fluctuating heart rate, abnormal blood pressure, stress, and anxiety are all signs of stress.
When you rid yourself of such feelings, you are in a state of being stress-free. Stress reduction methods like deep breathing, meditation, and exercise are all the roadmap to leading a stress-free life.[1]
A positive approach, gratification, and satisfaction towards life are important stress-relieving techniques to deal with it.
13 Ways to Live a Stress-Free Life
There are various ways to help you deal with stress. Living constantly in a stressful situation can negatively affect your life. The first and foremost thing is to acknowledge that you are living under stress.
When you find yourself experiencing reduced efficiency and curtailed ability to live a healthy and happy life, realize that you are living under stress. These feelings are accompanied by anger, irritation, and anxiousness.
Instead of blaming the existing predicament, you can focus on various methods to help you deal with stress. You can start feeling stress-free by adopting a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
Here are 13 ways to help you live a stress-free life:
1. Stop Overanalyzing Situations That Haven’t Happened
The first step to living a stress-free life is to stop overanalyzing imaginary scenarios. It’s easy to spend time in the world of worst-case scenarios. People tend to cultivate this world for one of two reasons.
First, because if you know what the worst-case scenario is, then it won’t surprise you when it happens. Second, if you know what the worst-case scenario is, then you can do everything in your power to control the universe so the worst case never happens.
If that’s the world you want to cultivate, then become a professional risk assessor. If not, then ask yourself how you are benefiting from continuing to live that way.
Does it make you feel better about yourself and your life? Does it make you want to leap out of bed in the morning, eager to embrace the worst-case scenario? Does it bring you joy or fulfillment?
If your answer to these three questions is no, then stop living in the future and bring yourself back into the present.
2. Don’t Take on Other People’s Problems
The whole advantage of other people having problems is that they aren’t your problems. When you frequently take on other people’s problems, you get into the habit of enabling.
Let’s get crystal clear about the definition of enabling: enabling is the art of continuing to take responsibility for other people, thereby disallowing their responsibility.[2]
It is of no service to other people to take on their problems because they can’t/won’t/dodon’t know how to fix the problem.
It is of service to empower others to take responsibility for themselves and their lives, to encourage, teach, and motivate others to address their problems. So stop enabling, and start empowering.
3. Get Present in the Moment
Being present in the moment involves being in your body and feeling your feelings—two things that lots of folks don’t know how to do.
Ask yourself these two questions: What does fear feel like in your body? What are you afraid of?
If you don’t know the answer to these questions, you probably aren’t present at the moment. Being present involves vulnerability, humility, and openness.
The past and the future stop being so relevant and intriguing when you’re able to get in your body and feel your feelings. When you can do these two things, you want to be in the present moment.
To get started, close your eyes, focus on your breathing, and watch your stress levels drop.
4. Focus on What You Have, Not What You Don’t
The easiest way to stop focusing on what you don’t have is by not watching TV commercials. Marketing teaches us to focus on what we don’t have, and advertising campaigns spend millions of dollars convincing us that we must have what we don’t yet have.
Can you think of a marketing campaign that teaches you to enjoy what you already have without buying something to enhance it? Odds are you can’t.
In a world dictated by Super Bowl commercials and Facebook ads, it takes stalwart focus to recognize what you have more than what you don’t. If you want a stress-free life now, get stalwart, and stop letting other people dictate your focus.
To do this, try cultivating a gratitude practice to help refocus your mind toward what is good in your life. You can get started with this guide.
5. Follow a Steady Routine
Start by following a healthy routine that can include exercise or meditation. Your routine should be in sync with your mental and physical capacity. Setting a routine is one thing and following it through is another. Your journey to a stress-free life would start with following a steady routine.
6. Take a Good Self-Care
Remember that managing stress would require efforts from you, which would only start with self-care. It would include giving up habits that harm you and adapting rituals that keep you healthy and composed. When your nervous system and body are healthy, stress will have no place in your life.
7. Stop Surrounding Yourself With People Who Don’t Make You Happy
Honestly, what kind of people do you like to be around? People who get you, who see you clearly, who accept your flaws and all; people you can be yourself with; people who have shared interests?
How many of those people are in your life? What characteristics do all of the other people in your life have?
If you find that the people in your life aren’t adding anything positive, it may be time to make some changes. If you find that other relationships you have are downright toxic, start working to cut out those relationships immediately.
8. Find a Job That Makes You Feel Good
You don’t have to stay at a job just because it pays the bills. Most people spend more time working than sleeping. The average person spends 40 to 80 hours a week—or 2,000 to 4,000 hours a year—working. That is a significant investment!
If your best friend or child told you that they were going to spend 4,000 hours giving their emotional, mental, and physical energy to something (or someone) that wasn’t going to value them, give anything back to them or pay them what they were worth, what advice would you offer? Give that same advice to yourself. You won’t be stress-free unless you don’t learn this.[3]
9. Take on What You Can Handle
Busyness is an addiction. Slowing down can be terrifying because it causes you to notice that you have feelings that you now have time to feel.
I get it.
By the time I slowed down, I had decades of busyness under my belt. I went into a tailspin of depression because I didn’t understand how to be in the right relationship with my own emotions.
When I finally figured out that feelings are just feelings and that allowing them to express themselves is healthy and natural, I stopped experiencing withdrawal from my addiction to busyness and started figuring out the pace of life that felt best for me.
Remarkably, I discovered that I don’t actually like being busy. What will you discover about yourself?
10. Let Go of Grudges and Anger
For me, it took 20 years of adulthood to figure out that holding on to grudges and anger only hurt me. Lucky for you, though, you can benefit vicariously from my experience just by reading one short paragraph!
No one is holding your feet to the fire, demanding that you hold on to grudges and anger. The energy of anger slowly eats away at your body, mind, and spirit, until one day you wake up more resentful than optimistic.
One day, people no longer want to be around you because the stink of negativity is oozing out of your pores. One day, you even get tired of hearing yourself get angry. And the person or people you are angry at or holding grudges against probably haven’t been affected at all.
11. Stop Reliving Your Past
To live a stress-free life, you have to stop reliving your past. I know it seems like fun to compare everything in your present to your past, and to experience the present through past-colored glasses, but it isn’t.
When you wear past-colored glasses, you can’t truly experience the present for what it is. Your boyfriend or girlfriend gets compared to a list of expectations and failed relationships rather than recognized for the unique blessing they are in your life.
Your boss gets compared to all the bosses who came before her/him. Your friends’ ability to parent gets compared to your parent’s ability to parent.
People, including you, deserve to stand on their past-free merit.
12. Don’t Complain About Things You Can’t Change
There are always going to be people elected into office whom you don’t like, taxes that you don’t want to pay, idiot drivers who refuse to move out of the left-hand lane, and a person ahead of you in the check-out line who won’t stop chatting with the clerk.
The great benefit of being human is that we get to experience all of what life offers us. To live stress-free is to learn to deal with this fact.
Dwelling on your frustration with something that can’t be changed doesn’t do anything other than drag you down. You are the only person who will ultimately decide how to respond to what is.
13. Stop Living Through Other People’s Lives
Someone else’s life is not your life. Your life is your life.
What that means is you get to live your life in the way you want. You get to make ridiculous mistakes, take leaps of faith, and stuff things inside your handbag of fear just as much as the next person.
Going through stuff is the whole great messy adventure of being human! Being alive and living life is terrifying and glorious and everything in between.
Stop living through social media, trying to soak in all of the experiences everyone else is having. Focus, instead, on what it feels like to be you at this moment. You may find you like it.
Benefits of Lower Stress
We all know that if we’re too stressed it’s bad for our health both mentally and physically. But how much do you know about the benefits of having lower stress?
Improved Memory and Better Productivity
Stress leads to reduced brain activity and less concentration. When you are poised and calm, your brain functions improve and help you perform better. You can think more clearly and hence improve your productivity.[4]
Maintains Blood Pressure
Your blood pressure fluctuations are related to stress levels. Higher stress can lead to higher blood pressure due to anger, frustration, and anxiety. When you learn to live stress-free, your pressure stays within the limit.[5]
Stress-Free Leads to a Healthier Heart
Living under stress increases the chances of you having a stroke. Adapting to a stress-free lifestyle keeps your heart rate in check.[6]
No Depression
People living under stress are more prone to get into depression. Your mental state is highly affected by stress levels. A long-standing stress response is a disturbed mindset, so one must deal with it soonest possible. [7]
No Weight Gain
One of the common effects of living under stress is overeating. People tend to eat more and more often when dealing with stress. When you find ways to deal with your stress, you keep your weight in check.[8]
Final Thoughts
An astounding thing happens when you reduce stress and anxiety, get into a relationship with your body, mind, and spirit, and just be yourself without judgment.
Your life slows down. You stop wishing for the weekend. You begin to live in each moment, and you start feeling like a human being. You just ride the wave that is life, with this feeling of contentment and joy.
You move fluidly, steadily, calmly, and gratefully. A veil is lifted, and a whole new perspective is born through improved mental health. And this is how you live a stress-free life.
| [1] | ^ | National Center for Biotechnology Information: How to Relax in Stressful Situations: A Smart Stress Reduction System |
| [2] | ^ | Psychology Today: Are You Empowering or Enabling? |
| [3] | ^ | The Balance Careers: Top 5 Tips for Finding a Job You Will Love |
| [4] | ^ | Medical News Today: How does stress affect the brain? |
| [5] | ^ | National Center for Biotechnology Information: Chronic Psychosocial Stress and Hypertension |
| [6] | ^ | University of Rochester Medical Center: Stress Can Increase Your Risk for Heart Disease |
| [7] | ^ | Sci Med Central: Chronic Stress Leads to Anxiety and Depression |
| [8] | ^ | National Center for Biotechnology Information: Effects of Chronic Social Stress on Obesity |
